L. Modesitt: Arms-Commander

“I didn’t think so. But why don’t you go up there and offer to walk the horses while they’re cleaning the stables? Keep them on the road. Otherwise, you’ll end up having to clean them as well. The ground’s too swampy. You can tell the guard captain that I sent you.”

“Yes, ser.”

The three hurried toward the tower to put away their wands. Saryn followed, closing the heavy door behind her and starting across the gloomy lower foyer when she saw a junior guard coming down the steps with a basket heaped with linens and other cloth.

“Why aren’t you with the others?” asked Saryn.

“I’m the one assigned to the healer today, ser,” replied Calysa. “I was taking these over to the bath house to wash.”

“Go ahead, then.” With a faint smile, Saryn stepped to one side.

The young woman looked around before asking, “Guard Commander?”

Saryn had almost started up the steps but halted at the hesitant words of the girl, a thin figure who had walked the roads and trails all the way from Fenard in the waning days of the previous fall, literally clawing her way through the last snowdrifts to a guard post three kays below the ridge overlooking Tower Black. “Yes, Calysa?”

“Is it true…that…?” The brunette looked away.

“Is what true, girl?” Despite her irritation at being waylaid on her way to see the Marshal, Saryn refrained from snapping because Calysa never complained, never whined, and gave her all to anything she was asked to do.

“The stones, ser. They say that they were cut from the heart of the world by…”

Saryn wanted to shake her head. Nylan had been gone little more than ten years, and already the engineer was a legend. The mighty Nylan…the mage who had humbled two rulers, then toppled the white empire, if with Arylyn, the singer of life and death. And the man who had fled the wrath of the terrible Ryba, she reminded herself. “Yes, every stone in Tower Black was shaped in fire by Nylan. Is that what you wanted to know?”

Calysa nodded, but a question remained in her eyes.

“And you also want to know why someone so mighty would leave Westwind?” Saryn smiled wryly. “He and Ryba did not view matters in quite the same fashion, and she can see not only what is but what will be. Not even Nylan wished to cross her knowledge of what was, is, and will be.” That was an oversimplification, but after years of having to explain, Saryn knew what satisfied the young women who had sought Westwind as a refuge.

“Thank you, ser.”

“You best get on with the wash,” Saryn said, gently but firmly.

“Yes, ser.” Calysa continued on with the basket.

Saryn made her way up the solid stone steps that formed the center of the tower, all the way to the topmost level-and the Marshal’s study.

At the sound of Saryn’s boots, Ryba lifted her eyes from the maps spread across the simple circular table and rose from the straight-backed chair. “How is Huldran coming?”

“By midsummer we should have enough blades for another full company. She can’t duplicate the bows, not the way Nylan did them-”

“If you please.” Ryba’s voice was cool. “Just the status.”

“One of the Analerian herder girls has been working on ways to make a better horn bow, and Huldran has some ideas for coring it that might work.”

“What about firearms?”

“With all those white wizards?” Saryn shook her head. “Using black powder for explosives and roadwork is one thing, but making firearms by hand would take far longer than the blades. We haven’t found any sulfur anywhere in our territory, or even nearby. And the white mages could explode the powder in battle. We’ve barely managed to trade for enough sulfur for explosives for the roadwork.”

“Save it. No more roadwork this year, not that requires blasting. Press the smiths for all the blades and arrowheads they can deliver. How much of the second company can you mount?”

“About two-thirds without any spares. All of them if we had to,” Saryn conceded. “We were hard-pressed for fodder for the mounts we had this winter.”

“We’ll have to find a way to do better next year. Much better.” Ryba’s words were calm, as if finding another fifty mounts and five months of fodder for them was the easiest of tasks upon the Roof of the World.

Saryn merely nodded, then asked, “Why are you so concerned about weapons for a company we won’t likely fill for another few years?”

“We’ll fill it sooner than that. We have to.”

“Who’s likely to cause trouble? It can’t be from Lady Zeldyan in Lornth or Lord Gethen, not after…all that happened there.”

“Lornth isn’t the problem. Lady Zeldyan has her hands full with the Jeranyi and Ildyrom’s son. It took five years for the Jeranyi to sort out which of Ildyrom’s sons would be Lord of Jerans. That’s why they didn’t resume hostilities against Lornth, but that could all change soon, now that Zeldyan’s son is getting old enough to rule. It’s one thing to remove a woman, but the lord-holders there tend to think twice about going after male rulers.”

“Nesslek’s what…eleven?”

“The years are longer here. He’s twelve in terms of Sybran years, and at fifteen local years he can rule, even if he really leans on his mother and his grandfather.”

“Karthanos…?”

Ryba nodded. “Gallos. Not Karthanos himself. I’ve received word that Lord Karthanos is ill. He may recover. He may not, but he will not rule Gallos for much longer, and his son hardly has any love for Westwind.”

“Oh?” asked Saryn.

“Do you recall how Balyea came here?”

“Yes. She’s the beautiful one who brought her mother and the wagon and the looms. Without her…we’d be far less well clad.”

“She brought a small chest of golds to allow her sons to remain with her.”

The two boys had barely been more than babes in arms. Even now, they were only six and seven. “She said that she was fleeing an abusive husband and that Westwind was the only place she could be sure she would not be reclaimed.”

“I’m more than certain that Arthanos was abusive, but he wasn’t her husband.”

“Arthanos? She’s never mentioned his name. Not that I know.” Saryn paused. “Oh…he’s that Arthanos? She was his mistress, then?”

“Exactly. He’s a very nasty piece of work. His oldest brother was part of the small Gallosian contingent in the attack on Westwind, and did not survive. Not all that surprisingly, his next-older brother died last fall in a riding accident. Now his father is ill…”

“Does he know that Balyea is here?”

“He tortured enough people to discover that.” Ryba might have been discussing what road needed to be paved next.

“When will he attack?”

“Late spring or sometime in summer, well before the harvest in Gallos. We’ll need all the explosive devices you can manage.”

“Arthanos will have white wizards.”

“They aren’t that good at detonating explosives buried in rock and soil, especially those that aren’t all that close.”

Saryn understood that Ryba saw-and foresaw-more than anyone logically could, but she’d yet to have been wrong when she said something was going to happen, and that meant another war-or series of battles. And more deaths. Given the position of the angels of Westwind and Ryba’s determination, Saryn’s only choice was to work to make certain the deaths were overwhelmingly those of the Gallosians.

In the late evening, Saryn and Istril sat in the darkness of the long room that doubled as the dining hall and common room of Tower Black, across from each other at the corner of the long table nearest the iron stove in the hearth. Neither needed light, not with their nightsight. Unlike Istril, who was full Sybran and bred to the cold, Saryn fully appreciated the residual heat from the stove. The bark tea remaining in her mug had cooled to lukewarm, but she enjoyed the warmth of the mug in her hands.